Written by: Starmaiden, mikilater, Magical Maeve, and HermyRox12
Edited by: Poultrygeist 99
Anyone who'd met the four separately would have been confused as to why they were friends. True, they were all of noble class, yet it wasn't blood that kept them together. It was that they could be different and yet still love each other all the same that kept them whole. Four more different people, one could scarcely hope to meet!
Godric was an optimistic man and virtually fearless. This was not, as far as Rowena was concerned, a good habit; it tended to make him slightly reckless. But though he came off at times as slightly thick, perhaps because of his single-minded chivalry, he was a good man with a quick wit. He would teach the students magical defense.
Helga was the youngest of them. She was almost as optimistic as Godric, and had a heart of gold. She had thought of the school, where magical children could learn all they would need for their futures. Normally, children were educated in the home. In Helga’s dream school, the children would bond with each other and learn a great deal more than their parents could teach them. They would also be able to practice their skills in an environment safe from prying Muggle eyes.
Rowena watched as Godric pulled Helga a little closer, impossible though that seemed. Yes, they would do well together. Rowena was different. While Godric and Helga reached toward the goal of a safe, happy life together, Rowena thirsted for learning. It was her goal in life to learn everything she could. She believed herself to be the pragmatic one of the group. She had suggested a house administrated by each of them, to ease the burden of numbers. She also hoped the separate houses would help them foster the unique talents of different children.
A movement on the table caught Rowena’s eye as Salazar shifted the parchment. Salazar was the oldest, though he was not a decade older than Helga. He was cynical, which balanced Godric well. He had leaped on the idea of the school “ a place for magical children to reach their full potential away from the detestable Muggles. He was also the one with the practical knowledge to build the school, having spurned “the swaggering bravado that is knighthood” in favor of intensive scholarship.
Her attraction to the man puzzled Rowena. He was handsome, to be sure, and talented, but he was not particularly suave or social. He neither pursued nor hated women (or other men). The real pull, she supposed, was his strange mystique. He never seemed as open as the others.
Yet somehow it seemed to work. Salazar would build the school, Rowena would administer it, Helga would coax the families to let the children attend, and Godric would hold them together with his humor and hope.
Godric led Helga back to the others, gazing into her eyes so that he bumped into the table instead of sitting down. Rowena’s goblet teetered and fell, spilling ale over her lap. “A fat hog’s warts! Godric, please be careful.”
Godric looked up sharply. “What did you say?”
“I said, please be “”
“You said, ‘A fat hog’s warts.’”
“And?”
Helga’s eyes clouded over as they always did when she thought. “A fat hog’s warts…a hog’s …Hogwarts?”
Salazar snorted. “That’s preposterous. Who would send their children to ‘Hogwarts’?”
Rowena smiled. “What better to confuse the Muggles?”
The wheels under the black hair turned: preposterous versus an anti-Muggle device? Finally, Salazar nodded grudgingly. “True. Hogwarts it is, then!”
Helga smiled and regarded her friends fondly. She mused to herself, These are my closest friends: Rowena, Salazar, and Godric. But something is changing; I can feel it in the air. Maybe it is the prospect of the new school, or maybe it is the dance that Godric and I had just shared. Helga’s eyes twinkled as she remembered Godric singing in her ear.
Salazar rustled the parchment again and returned Helga to her reflection. All I know is that something is going to change, be it tonight or in a hundred years. I can feel it in my bones. Something great is happening here, something I just can’t describe. Maybe I'll ask Rowena later, she is always better at finding the right words than I am. For now I'll let it lie.
"How are we to sort them," Rowena queried, "We are going to divide them equally, but how do we choose?" Godric, proud as ever spoke first.
"I'll take the bravest, the bold will be my pupils!" He boasted.
"Hopefully they won’t develop his big head," Salazar joked to Rowena. She smiled lightly as Godric shot him a dirty look.
"That was uncalled for," Godric muttered darkly, his pride injured.
"Pluck up, I was only joking!" Salazar exclaimed smacking him on the arm.
“I’ll take the Smart, witty, and creative of the bunch.” Rowena announced to the group.
“Well, the cunning and sly will go to me. Maybe they’ll inherit my ability to skim the cream off the top of every situation,” Salazar said.
“Cream?” Helga teased. “You could curdle cream with that tongue of yours!”
“Anyway, I’ll take the hard working and loyal. Talent isn’t everything! If a child is willing to work and try their best, I’ll take them.” Helga informed her friends. What's with the houses anyway? They are all equal, aren't they? I guess it is to keep them in line, she thought to herself.
Salazar withdrew into himself, musing over what had been suggested so far. Frivolities, these names and divisions. What really mattered, he mused as he swirled the sediment of his scrumpy, was that they provide an excellent education for wizards, and wizards only. He eyed Godric, so jovial, so at ease with people, and for a moment wished that he shared these attributes. But no, Salazar Slytherin was above such niceties. His friendship with these people was a matter of need rather than want. He was as clever, as political, as the men currently arguing over the future of the Muggle lands, and he knew he needed to be a part of this school, rather than an outsider looking to invade. And Salazar was already forming a plan, a security against what must surely go wrong.
Gryffindor, along with that fool Helga, would undoubtedly insist that those of mixed blood should enter the school. And he, Salazar Slytherin, would undoubtedly have to put the case against such watering down. He eyed Rowena, her hair framing a fine face, an intelligent face. Just where did her sympathies reside? Could it be that she would be persuaded to join him?
But no matter. If she did or did not, Salazar was already seeing his Chamber in his mind’s eye: deep, buried, earth-bound, a vaulted ceiling, a sealed entrance, permanence. He had been working with a Moorish wizard who knew how to obtain a Basilisk egg; what better guardian, what more effective security did one need?
He looked again at Rowena, and he saw the faint blush on her cheeks. Attractive, of that there was no doubt. His Chamber would need an heir, a bloodline that would carry his ideals. Would Rowena provide that heir? He allowed himself the luxury of this thought for a moment, watching as she turned away, that dark hair sweeping down and covering her hand. Salazar knew things must be set in motion. As the one who had charge of the building, it would be a trifle to place his Chamber there. No one need ever know of its existence, until the time was right.
He had followers, and he had allies on foreign shores. He had recently spent some time in the Harz mountains, learning the ways of the Knights of Walpurgis. They would be come to his side if he needed to take more vigorous action to pursue his ideals.
Salazar smiled to himself. Surely he was moving too quickly. There was still a chance that he could parley his way to what he wanted. And if he could not? He would burn that bridge when it came to it.
Rowena and Salazar had been good friends for a while. What’s wrong with taking a step further? He went up to Rowena and asked her what personal touch she would add to the school.
“Well, as you all know, I have a great love of art. It brings out the creativity of everyone. We should have paintings galore in the castle. Ones of Hogs, and people with warts, and of all the headmasters and headmistresses, when the time comes for us to pass away.” Rowena said.